Cooperative Security Fabric

This collection of related recipes shows how to configure a Cooperative Security Fabric (CSF) – also known as a Fortinet Security Fabric – throughout your network, using a range of Fortinet products. This Fabric will link different security sensors and tools together to collect, coordinate, and respond to malicious behavior anywhere it occurs on your network in real time.

Below, you will find links to a number of Cookbook recipes. By using these recipes in the listed order, you can create a network similar to the one shown above.

Between most steps are screenshots showing the FortiView Topology dashboards, which can be seen in the video above. These dashboards display the devices that make up your Security Fabric. The Physical Topology dashboard shows all access layer devices, while the Logical Topology dashboard displays information about the interface (logical or physical) that each device is connected to.

In this recipe, two additional FortiGates are added to the network as an Internal Segmentation Firewalls (ISFWs). Once the FortiGates are installed, a Security Fabric is set up between them and the external FortiGate which was installed in the network previously.

In the example network, the Internet-facing FortiGate is called External, with two additional FortiGates, called Accounting and Marketing, configured as ISFWs. The FortiGates all appear in the FortiView toplogy dashboards on the External FortiGate.

In this recipe, two FortiSwitches are installed behind the ISFWs. The FortiSwitches are managed by the FortiGates and will be used to connect two internal networks that will be protected by the FortiGates.

The FortiSwitches now appears in the Physical Topology dashboard, provided the Access Device view is selected. The switches do not appear in the Logical Topology dashboard.

In this recipe, a FortiClient profile is used to enforce endpoint control for devices that are connected to the CSF.

In the screenshots below, endpoint control has been applied to a PC on the Marketing Network. Also, the Marketing FortiSwitch now appears in the Logical Topology dashboard because traffic is flowing through it.

Victoria Martin works in Ottawa as part of the FortiOS technical documentation team. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Mount Allison University, after which she attended Humber College's book publishing program, followed by the more practical technical writing program at Algonquin College. She does need glasses but also likes wearing them, since glasses make you look smarter.

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